


relief

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 10:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Gaara and Lee share a basket of peaches.Written for the prompt "Relief" for the@writingfeedbacknetworkSeptember challenge.





	relief

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in about an hour in the middle of the night. Unbeta'd.

The last days of summer drape Konoha like a shroud. The air clings, hot and muzzy, to skin and hair and teeth. Tightly curled clouds crowd the lower levels of the sky, keeping the humidity close to earth. The whole village is swaddled in it, like a baby restrained by its blanket: secure, comforted, immobilized, over-warm.

In the main streets, children cling to the hems of their mothers’ kimonos and beg for ice lollies and snow cones, which they swallow red-mouthed and sticky-fingered, then ask for more. The tea houses sell out of milk tea, and paper fans stay clenched in hands that leave wet marks on their thin wooden slats. In the Hokage’s office, a rickety electric fan buzzes, spins, clicks, buzzes again. 

After his last meeting of the day, Gaara materializes in a swirl of sand at the edge of Training Field 5. When he removes his hat, pink skin and a ring of sweat mark the place its band touched his skin. 

Lee pauses in his five hundred and eighty-fifth kick, bringing his foot gently down to earth. 

“It’s hot,” Gaara says. “I’m hot.”

_Yes._ Lee swallows.

“Shall we go to the river?”

There’s a spot between the trees where shadows have made their home all day, leaving little hollows of cool. The smell of crushed grass permeates wherever they step. Gaara grass-stains the knees of his white robes when he kneels to shuck his sandals. 

The robe follows next, the hat atop it, a little pile of rumpled cloth and dove-feather white. Above, the clouds darken to the color of the sleepless bruises under his eyes. 

Gaara’s knobby ankles swing beneath the surface of the water, thin linen trousers rolled to his knees, pale skin now pale blue. Concentric circles radiate out from where his legs idly kick, touch one another, intersect and then flow apart. 

Lee folds his jumpsuit down to his waist, cups water in his hands and pours it over his head. Water sluices down his back, trails down his stomach to stain the waistband of his jumpsuit a shade darker green. 

Gaara watches him, a hint of pink tongue behind lips kissed damp by the heat. 

Lee has a basket of peaches, purchased that morning at a market stall. The last of the season, their skins still firm but their flesh soft and ripe. 

Gaara selects the largest and turns it in his hand before he bites it: white teeth in pink skin. Juice rolls down his wrist, drips off his elbow. He sucks the last of the flesh from the pit and spits it into the water. More ripples, more circles, as the pit sinks to the bottom and joins the stones below. 

Lee isn’t staring. 

“You’re staring,” Gaara says, and licks pulp from his sticky fingers. 

Gaara’s staring, too. 

A stiff breeze chases its tail across the clearing and turns the trees’ leaves belly-up, pale undersides exposed to the world. Lee stutters, mumbles a half-apology in malformed words. Gaara brushes it aside with a flick of his wrist, like dust brushed from so many shoulders. 

He looks upwards with eyes the color of crushed mint leaves. 

“It’s raining,” he says. 

Flecks of water, cool and sharp as the first snow of winter, touch down on Lee’s burning shoulders, freckle his nose, cling to the length of his eyelashes.

“I’m sorry. Do you want to go inside?”

“No.” Simple and blunt as ever. “I like it.” 

A slim-fingered hand rustles in the basket behind them. 

“The last peach,” Gaara says, holding the fruit out, his thumb resting in the dimple of the fruit’s sunset-colored flesh. “Do you want it?”

Lee leans forward and bites into it. Juice runs down his chin. 

From the widening of Gaara’s eyes, the sharp intake of his breath, Lee can tell that Gaara expected him to take the peach in his own hand before eating it. 

Lee reaches out to take the fruit, a hand towards Gaara’s slim wrist. Gaara pulls his hand away. 

Only when Lee’s bandaged hand drops back to the soft earth does Gaara hold the fruit out again for Lee to bite.

Gaara turns the fruit carefully, fingers digging into the slick of the wrinkled pit so Lee can bite into the other side. His eyes burn, his breathing heavy. Lee's thumb presses Gaara's pulse point, long fingers around the thin bones of his wrist, until the rhythm of their blood syncs. Lee has never felt so _observed_ in his life. 

When the flesh is gone, Gaara pushes the pit between Lee’s lips. He sucks off the last of the juice and spits the pit into the river. 

It skips to the other bank like a smooth stone. 

Circles within circles spread, ripples of clear, and come back to touch Gaara’s bare ankles, still dangling in the water. 

Gaara’s fingers linger at the corner of Lee’s mouth. 

With the boldness of the summer sun, Lee sucks them into his mouth, the digits soft and sugar-sweet when he licks between them. 

Gaara leans close. Raindrops fleck the crown of his brow, like spider silk in the dark-red curls of his hair. A hand falls to Lee’s knee. There’s a splash as feet leave the water, the smell of freshly nourished grass between bare toes. 

When Lee finally kisses him, he tastes like rain and peaches.


End file.
